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Fun Fact Friday: Language Line Used 1400 times in 2012

Thousands of visitors are welcomed to YVR daily in a vast array of international languages.

But sometimes they need more than just a warm welcome, and in scenarios where an in-person translator can't be found immediately, the 50 Language Lines located in key areas around the airport are called in to action.

If a passenger presents themselves at a customer care counter and identifies their language from a list of 170 samples, they are connected with an operator who can speak their native tongue. The dual handset allows the customer care agent to listen in and provide customer care via the translator.

The Language Line was used 1400 times in 2012 to assist passengers in 40 different languages ranging from Mandarin, Spanish and German all the way to Tigrinya, Romanian and Urdu.

The table below shows the breakdown between languages and dialects and illustrates just how diverse a crowd we see at YVR every single day. One famous study claimed that 93 percent of communication is non-verbal, but sometimes just hearing their own language can comfort a stressed or weary traveller, and the Language Line makes this possible.